In the City
by ristee
Summary: A new city and a familiar face: Ryan and Karen find themselves in New York.  Oneshot.


Ryan isn't sure when it happened (or why), but he _is_ sure that this is a terrible idea.

He'd gotten the call about the corporate job on Thursday afternoon, and spent this Saturday morning apartment hunting in New York City, following a realtor recommended by David Wallace through flats too posh for a junior paper salesman, but perfect for a low-level corporate executive. He found one or two he liked, made plans to come back the next weekend, and stepped out into the city to look for a trendy lunch spot.

He'd worn the nicest casual clothes he owned—nice sunglasses, slightly rumpled white button-down, stylishly worn jeans, and an edgy-looking blazer—and he walked confidently down streets he didn't recognize, trying not to think about how the hell he was going to find his car later, just trying to be Ryan Howard, Dunder-Mifflin Corporate, as convincing a New Yorker as Jan. Well, pre-nervous-breakdown, sleeping-with-Michael, look-at-those-breast-implants Jan.

Then as he walked past a Starbucks, completely lost, he heard it: "Ryan?"

He turned and saw her holding an iced mocha. "Karen," he said, surprised.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm, uh, looking for an apartment." Seeing the confused look cross her face, he explained, "Wallace gave me the job at corporate. I interviewed last week."

"Oh," Karen responded, looking impressed. "Congrats."

"Thanks."

"So…where are you going now?"

Ryan hesitated, trying to come up with a convincing lie. "Uh…I have no idea." _Nice, Howard._

Her eyebrows lifted and she gave him a bemused half-smile. "Okay."

"The truth is," he started, taking off his sunglasses to look at her sheepishly, "I have no clue where I am. Yeah," he finished, chuckling as Karen started to laugh.

So he let her bring him to a restaurant billing itself as a bistro where she was meeting her friends for lunch. Lunch for Karen and her friends evidently meant an hour of eating and then three hours of sipping at wine and chatting about whatever came to mind. Ryan was surprised by how much fun he had—Kelly had dragged him to similar meals with her sisters and he'd been contemplating suicide by butter knife before he'd even ordered his drink. Karen's friends were the epitome of New York cool and she was perfectly at home among them, laughing and joking, smiling in a way Ryan had never seen her do in Scranton (_not even with Jim_). She looked so different, dressed in her non-work clothes with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, grinning from ear to ear, and Ryan realized for the first time that she wasn't just _hot_, she was _pretty_. Then he though about the fact that Jim could probably kick his ass and turned to the only one other guy at the table, a blond guy with hip-looking glasses who wrote for a culture magazine in the city. He had introduced himself earlier as Paul and told Ryan, "It's nice to see some more testosterone here, man. Welcome."

Ryan was buzzed and had a bunch of new numbers and emails in his phone by the time lunch broke up and he found himself alone with Karen again. He was trying not to watch her hair catch the afternoon sunlight when he heard her say, "I'm really sorry for making you sit through that."

"I had a good time, actually," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets to keep them from going somewhere they shouldn't, "and this is your notification that I'm stealing all your friends. Just FYI."

Karen rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

One thing led to another and now Ryan finds himself in Karen's hotel room, drinking champagne and setting the empty room service plates outside the door. As he settles back against the pillows to watch _Top Gun_ on TV, he reminds himself that Karen has a boyfriend, and not only does she _have_ a boyfriend but he _knows_ said boyfriend, and while he has never particularly _liked_ Jim, there's not a chance in hell he's going to piss him off by hitting on his (gorgeous, funny, awesome) girlfriend.

"We can apparently rent an N64 from the hotel," Karen tells him, reading the laminated card she picked up from the desk across the room. She looks up and grins evilly. "I bet I could totally school you on Mario Kart."

"Is that a challenge, Filippelli?"

"Hell, yes."

Before he knows it, they've played for three hours and Karen is, indeed, handing his ass to him. He drops the controller after his frillionth loss and falls back on the bed with a frustrated groan as she laughs in delight. Despite the fact that she's totally emasculated him for the last three hours—because honestly, your guy membership is kind of automatically revoked when you lose to a chick at _Mario Kart_—something in his stomach jumps when she laughs like that. Then she's lying down next to him and it's getting that much harder to breathe normally.

Ryan almost passes out when he feels Karen's breath in his ear, hears her murmur his name and watches her hand slide over his stomach. He grabs her wrist before she gets any further. "What are you doing, Karen?"

There's a pause before she responds. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Yes," he says slowly, trying to ignore the way her fingernails are tracing little circles onto his skin through his shirt, "but the last time I checked, you were dating Jim."

Karen gives a short laugh. "You should check again."

_What?_ Ryan raises himself up on an elbow to look down at her. "You're not dating Halpert anymore?"

She shakes her head. "After his interview, he went back to Scranton to ask Pam out to dinner. Leaving me here, by the way. So I think I can safely say that's over," she finishes with a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"And people think _I'm_ an asshole."

"What about you and Kelly?"

"I assholedly broke up with her as soon as I got the corporate job."

"I don't think that's a word."

"I don't care."

Karen smiles a little at that. "So I guess we're both on the rebound."

"I think that means we're allowed to make terrible, reckless decisions that we're going to regret in the morning," Ryan replies, leaning down a little, closing the distance between them.

"Definitely," she responds, sounding a little breathless.

He kisses her slowly, enjoying the way their lips move against each other, how she tastes like champagne and lip gloss, the way her body curves into him as he slides his tongue over hers, the little moan she makes when he slides his hand up under her shirt onto the bare skin of her lower back. Her arms wrap around his neck and her hands slide into his hair when he starts to kiss the delicate skin down the side of her neck. Ryan almost has an aneurysm when she _whimpers_ at the kiss he places in the hollow between her breasts. _Thank God I came to the city today_, he thinks as she tugs his shirt over his head without bothering to unbutton it.

By the time Karen cries his name and digs her fingernails into his back for the third time, Ryan knows he's going to ask her to stay in New York with him. He also knows Jim Halpert is insane. Pam is a lot of things, but Ryan suspects she isn't the most exciting bedroom partner. Karen, on the other hand, is the most spectacular fuck he's ever had in addition to being a Call of Duty addict and the only woman better at video games than he is. Also, she never wears pink.

He brushes the long, dark hair from her face, grazing her eyelids, her forehead, her nose with his lips before kissing her again, a long and quietly affectionate kiss that makes Karen sigh contentedly as she reaches for him. She wraps her arms around his waist and presses their warm bodies together as Ryan runs his fingers through her silky hair and kisses her, gently, incessantly, because he just can't help himself, damn it.

Karen fixes her green eyes on him—satisfied, smiling—and whispers against his lips, "I like a man who reacts so well to losing."

Ryan smirks at her. "Get used to it, Filippelli. You're not getting rid of me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

And with that, she tucks her head under his chin and closes her eyes. It feels she's made to fit there, and Ryan decides that maybe—_maybe_—this might be worth losing his gamer cred.


End file.
